Aaron Hill Activated, Paterson Optioned

Gibby announced that Aaron Hill will join the team in Washington. Joe Paterson was optioned to Triple-A @Aceball.

— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) June 23, 2013

This had been expected for a few days, but has now been confirmed. Aaron Hill will return to the D'Backs this week. Hill had been on the DL since April 16th from a broken hand suffered from being hit by a pitch in the hand from Pirates pitcher James McDonald on April 9th. After some slow healing, Hill started a rehab assignment with the Reno Aces on June 15th. In the ten games played by Hill before the injury, he was hitting a .306/.405/.556 line with two homers. The D'Backs (and us by proxy) hope he can provide a spark in the lineup. Hill's initial injury lead to the call-up of Didi Gregorius.

Paterson pitched 2.1 innings of mop-up duty in his return to the Diamondbacks, allowing one earned run and striking out two in that time period. This leaves Tony Sipp as the only left hander in the bullpen for the Diamondbacks at present and leaves recently called-up Zeke Spruill as another possible long-man option in the pen with Josh Collmenter.

Hill will, presumably, make his return to the lineup on Tuesday against the Nationals.